Let’s be clear — conservatives like John McCain, or more accurately, conservatives including John McCain, are the main reason McCain has to go to a Danish wind turbine manufacturer to give a climate speech. With the major government investments in wind in the 1970s, the United States was poised to be a dominant player in what was clearly going to be one of the biggest job creating industries of the next hundred years. But conservatives repeatedly gutted the wind budget, then opposed efforts by progressives to increase it, and repeatedly blocked efforts to extend the wind power tax credit. ….

So the end result is McCain delivers his big climate talk at a foreign wind manufacturer. If McCain becomes president, we will take modest, but inadequate action on global warming (as his speech makes clear), but the job-creating clean technologies we will be using to fight climate change, will primarily be coming from other countries.

McCain’s cost-containment strategy for his climate policy is a fraud. It substitutes a huge amount of low cost, phony emissions reductions both here and abroad — called offsets — for actual domestic emissions reductions. Offsets are “credits for reductions made from sectors of the economy outside the trading system.” … Ironically, one of the carbon offsets that McCain explicitly cites, no till farming, does not actually offset carbon emissions, according to the latest science.

Watthead’s John McCain Stumps on Climate from Stumptown, Oregon which provides an excellent analysis of the speech and the plan’s inadequacies, but also highlights that this is a location without actual wind turbine manufacturing directly because of Republican (including Senator John McCain) efforts to stymie wind power production through opposition to the production tax credits.

The irony of McCain’s choice of photo op locations is extremely rich considering that the last time the future of the PTC was uncertain, Vestas cancelled plans to build a Portland wind turbine manufacturing plant that would have employed up to 1,000 workers! It doesn’t get much better than that…

Eric de Place’s McCain’s Climate Plan: Better than Something Bad at FireDogLake which highlights how this speech was ” stunning rebuke it was to Bush and the GOP”. While a good post, Eric missed that ‘stunning rebuke’ and reporting on it is the central element of this plan in terms of McCain’s electoral political strategy.

Many environmental leaders were glad to hear the GOP candidate talking specifics on climate action, but still had criticism for the particulars of his plan.

“We are entering the post-Bush era of climate politics.” Jeremy Symons, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s climate-change campaign

“To his credit, Sen. McCain wants to do something serious about global warming, but his proposal falls far short of what the science says we need to do today,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski in a written statement. “He has not substantively improved his plan over the bill he introduced years ago — legislation that the science now shows is out of date.”

This is a genuinely radical feature of McCain’s plan, and it isn’t getting nearly enough press. …

McCain’s carbon policy will create a system that begs to be gamed and manipulated. The result will likely be many years of delay in generating the far-reaching changes the climate crisis requires.

Kevin Drum with John McCain and 100% Auctions, that highlights the difference between McCain’s concepts and Obama’s in terms of using the revenue from a cap-and-trade program.

It’s great that McCain acknowledges the reality of climate change and great that he acknowledges that we need to do something about it. But his cap-and-trade proposal is pretty weak tea.

So that’s that. A cap-and-trade system with a 100% auction provides revenue for green research; it reduces the regressivity of the tax hit; and it helps keep lobbyists from gaming the system. The giveaway method, conversely, is highly regressive; provides windfall profits for big polluters; and would almost certainly end up as a congressional pork barrel that eviscerated the original emission targets bit by bit by bit. It just goes to show that policy details matter. Take your pick.

So, McCain proposes a weak, pointless bill. One of his advisers suggests he won’t even stand by that proposal, while another argues that cheap energy trumps environmental concerns. Boy, that sure is different.

As has already been demonstrated time and again, “maverick” McCain’s difference from the hard right extends as far as his words, and stops well short of his deeds. Coming from McCain, any promise on climate change is nothing but hot air.

Matthew Yglesias comments that McCain Hearts Nukes that moves to an even more fundamental issue and question:

What I’d really like to hear from McCain is about a different departure from environmental orthodoxy — why, if he believes that global warming is a real problem that we should tackle by reducing carbon emissions, has he written a bill that doesn’t reduce emissions enough to tackle the problem? Presumably McCain’s belief about the nature of the problem comes from the same scientific sources as everyone else’s — so why’s he endorsing half-measures? Certainly if half-measures are the best you can get out of the legislative process a president should accept that, but why would you start with an inadequate long-term goal?

Here at Energy Smart, Halfway McCain: See Problem, not real solution which highlights how McCain has one foot in the reality-based world through acknowledging Global Warming but that his answers fall far short of what is required to actually deal with the challenges we face. This disconnect, however, is not one that the ‘traditional (entertainment) media’ will discuss.

And, in contrast to the obstinate denial of reality by some many in the Republican Party, his direct statements recognizing the reality of Global Warming, that humanity is a driving factor, that this a real threat, and stating that this threat requires real action will be a breath of fresh air and will entice many to believe that McCain’s Straight Talk offers an opportunity for sensible policy moving forward. And, almost assuredly, the media rapture for ‘Maverick’ McCain will continue with the reporting of this speech, with discussion almost certainly to come about his ‘courage’ and ‘leadership’ in the arena of Global Warming.

3 responses to “Blogging Halfway McCain’s Global Warming concepts”

I recognize McCain’s approach to tackling global warming comes short, and i will be supporting obama, and it’s important to distinguish who is truly green and who isn’t. However, you seem to only focus on bashing McCain when Obama and Clinton both have their own problems that worry me when it comes to Clinton’s constant talk of clean coal, and reluctance to declare an end to mountaintop removal. Not to mention Obama voting for the 2005 energy bill and Obama also doesn’t seem to be able to speak the truth on clean coal or take a firm stance on no more mountaintop removal. True McCain has these same shortcomings, but you only seem to be focusing on his own. We need to hold more than just McCain and Republicans accountable if we want to get good policy on climate change.

I have written on strengths and weaknesses in all three of the candidates.

In terms of questioning / challenging Clinton/Obama, I have raised serious questions about Clinton’s embracing of a gas tax holiday. On Obama, I’ve done a number of questioning pieces.

Both Clinton and Obama are poor (to bad) when it comes to their pandering (it seems) on “Clean Coal” leading into the West Virginia primary and Clinton (worse than Obama) on Mountain Top Removal. Your prod I will take but FYI, I have several draft posts (half-written) on coal issues, including one on Obama/Clinton. Thus, I do agree that this merits more attention … including from me.

I agree fully with the last sentence. We need to be working hard to prevent “bad” from governance and to move “reasonable” to good.